RE: Boarding party ships

Michael Sandy writes

(Not having the Fleet Book yet, or a reliable FTiii
shipbuilder program, some of the numbers may be off)

Boarding Pod:					     cost
Mass 6	(So as to fit in standardized Fighter Bays)    6
Thrust 8 Drives,  Mass 2			       6
Weak Hull	  Mass 1			       2
Streamlined hull  Mass 1			       ?
Troops		  Mass 2			       ?

Great, it costs under 20 points, I thought.  That is
before the 27 points for the Bay it takes up, not to
mention the 9 points for the parent ship's hull or the
parent ship's drives, easily another 9 points.

Much, Much cheaper to stick it on a tug.

Now I have a question:	Given that a boarding pod can
empty its entire troop complement into an enemy ship in
a single turn, why would it take so long to 'arm' it by
using the fighter bay rules?

XXX Takes a lot longer to load a pod with troops prepped for combat,
than  
 it does for those same troops to perform their assault out of the pod. 
 PA troopers might have to walk in backwards to acheive the proper 
orientation when egressing.  I figure that it would take 1-2 turns to
load 
a pod.XXX

Another use for the boarding pod would be as a salvage
ship, subbing in repair crews for troops.  How much mass
does a repair crew take up?  (assume the ship they are
salvaging has lost life support...)

XXX Same as I would expect for marines - they'd assume that the ship
they 
are going to has lost life support as well, or it will soon...XXX

If a ship transfers crew off during a fight in order to
salvage another ship, do you have to refigure where the
crew boxes are on the damage chart?

XXX That would depend if you were sending over just DCPs (no) or a prize

crew (yes).  You wouldn't have to, but I would.  But I'm picky about
wierd 
things. XXX

What would people think of a special weapon which does
damage to crews instead of to the ship itself?	(Probably
too hard to fairly implement, but I was thinking of some
weird Star Trek monsters...)

XXX The old SIlent Death expansion 'Night Brood' (cool minis!) had some 
rather exotic weapons, that might be more appropriate for
Sa'Vasku-types. 
 One was a Spore Launcher.  It fired missiles that, when they hit a
ship, 
released a compound/organism/whatever that consumed all organic-type 
materials - plastics and flesh, to name a few.	It ate up a random
number 
of crew units per turn.  They also had a Grappling Tube, a very
close-range 
weapon that allowed a ship to convert another ship into repairs.  It was

slow, and the target had to be non-firing & non-manuvering, but it was 
useful.XXX

Once I get the right numbers, I'll probably register the
'boarding pod' as a VIP passenger shuttle.  They generally
would be planet-based, but if the Admiral of the Fleet or
important politicos were travelling onboard then they'd
probably attach the shuttle in place of a fighter
squadron.  High mucketymucks would be spared the awkward
umbilical transfers, not to mention the ability to be
greeted in style in the Hangar by a decent reception
commitee.

Michael Sandy

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